Drawing on the work of Broad (2003), I created a Value Mapping assignment that asked graduate TAs in a composition practicum course to map the values of their assigned teaching mentors. Through analysis of syllabi, assignments, grading, and personal interviews, TAs made visual maps of their assigned mentors' teaching values and shared them with the class. Together, they discovered not only the values of the first-year writing program but also how teaching materials convey those values to students. This assignment may be adapted to other types of courses to help students see the different values that underlie their majors or professions.

This study provides a new framework for thinking about the value of writing center work by illuminating how tutors define and negotiate their various and emergent identities as students and as professionals. We build on conversations about tutor identity to argue that tutors’ multiple roles affect the dynamics of the writing center as a whole. From interviews with graduate and undergraduate tutors about professionalization and the writing center, we reveal that the tutors’ level of resistance to or acceptance of writing center work impacts the extent to which they see themselves as burgeoning professionals within that space and, concomitantly, affects the sense of community in the writing center. At our site of study, undergraduate tutors who self-selected into writing center employment generally had much more positive associations with their writing center experiences than their graduate student counterparts, who were often compelled to work in the center as part of their assistantships. We argue then that while writing centers can be valuable in building the professional identities of both undergraduate and graduate tutors, the ways in which these different populations affect our centers is significant. As such, writing center professionals at all levels should work to acknowledge different identities and foster community among tutors who come to us with multiple backgrounds, purposes, and agendas.

Drawing on the stories and words of GTAs themselves, this article works to complicate our narratives of GTA resistance within practicum courses by situating this resistance in the larger process of identity formation and graduate school. I explore the way that GTAs’ dual roles as students and as teachers intersect with teacher preparation, particularly practicum courses. Finally, I offer suggestions for teacher preparation programs that stem from my study, my experience, and the scholarship in the field.